“So also is the resurrection of the dead.
It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body;
it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory;
it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;
it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.”- {1 Corinthians 15:42-44}
Paul is speaking of a Resurrected Body, what will it be like? What will Your Resurrected Body Be like? Paul in this passage uses CONTRAST of our earthly body to Four Characteristic of our New Resurrected body, namely, it will be “an imperishable body”- v 42; “…a Powerful Body”- v 43…a “Spiritual Body”- v 44… and verse 42- A Glorified Body!
” It is Sown in Dishonor, it is Raised in GLORY”
These present bodies Paul says are “SOWN” which refers to burial! We put dead bodies into the ground, we put them out of the way! “...sown in a perishable body,… sown in weakness,… sown in a natural body… sown in Dishonor!”
These body’s are subject to sickness, weakness and death! We put them away when they die as a they decay, decompose, stink,and are lifeless but putrefaction quickly enters in and no matter how well a mortician makes the corpse looks well, trying to “beautify” it, and make it presentable, but it does not change the fact the body is dead! There is nothing honorable about death!
We put them away from us because they decay, and die and it is not natural to have a corpse living with you!
From the moment of birth with the first breath that child is on its way to death! Irrespective of the number of days. “…it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, “- {Heb 9;26}. These bodies from the moment of birth are born with confinements, limitations, sinful, rebellious toward God. Lives that are perishing, heading toward a grave, weak physically, morally, dishonoring God in the way they have lived, dishonored through sin, death ever drawing closer, and closer, no one knowing the day or the hour, and ultimately death overcomes each person…“But God…” is extending mercy with every heart beat, “…The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.”-{ 2 Peter 3:9 -NLT}.
There is nothing honorable about putting a body into the ground, it dishonors it as we were not meant for death, but the “soul that sins shall die!” That a person ends up dying, lifeless and turning to dust, is that it? Not for God’s People! In Him, there is Hope. There is the Scriptures to guide, inform, teach us and encourage and impart Hope. This body is not the end… there is a Glorious “But Christ…” “But…Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died.”-{1 Cor 15:20}.
Paul uses nature, that of a “SEED” to illustrate the difference, contrast of what is sown and what God produces when He resurrects the bodies of those who have received and believed in the Gospel – {Read 1 Cor 15:1-5}!
God raises the body that goes into ground and CHANGES it to one of GLORY and HONOR,INTEGRITY, PERFECTION, EXCELLENCE He will change us,
- “He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them INTO glorious bodies LIKE HIS OWN, using the same power with which He will bring everything under His control.”-{Phil 3:21}. Our “sown bodies…of perishable… Dishonorable…weak… natural body will be TRANSFORMED, CHANGED BY the Power of Christ into a NEW BODY… to Honor Him because these NEW BODIES will be free from DISHONOR of Sin to Honor Him… Note “…LIKE HIS OWN!”
- I John 3;1 -3 says,”Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, WE WILL BE LIKE HIM because we will see Him just as He is. “ And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”
We will change from a flawed, weak human to a state of perfection with a body Fitted for Heaven by the LORD…
- “Changed Into GLORIOUS Bodies LIKE HIS OWN”
- “We will BE LIKE HIM.”
” It is sown in dishonor – In the grave, where it is shut out from human view; hurried away from the sight of friends; loathsome and offensive as a mass turning to decay. There is, moreover, a kind of disgrace and ignominy attending it here, as under the curse of God, and, on account of sin, sentenced to the offensiveness of the grave.
It is raised in glory – In honor; in beauty; honored by God by the removal of the curse, and in a form and manner that shall be glorious. This refers to the fact that everything like dishonor, vileness, ignominy, which attends it here shall be removed there, and that the body shall bear a resemblance to the glorified body of Jesus Christ, Ephesians 3:21.
It shall be adapted to a world of glory; and everything which here rendered it vile, valueless, cumbersome, offensive, or degraded, shall be there removed. Of course, every idea which we can get from this is chiefly negative, and consists in denying that the body will have there the qualities which here render it vile or loathsome.
The word “glory” (δόξα doxa) means dignity, splendor, honor, excellence, perfection; and is used here as denoting the combination of all those things which shall rescue it from ignominy and disgrace.”-{Barnes}
43. in dishonour—answering to “our vile body” (Php 3:21); literally, “our body of humiliation”: liable to various humiliations of disease, injury, and decay at last.
in glory—the garment of incorruption (1Co 15:42, 43) like His glorious body (Php 4:21), which we shall put on (1Co 15:49, 53; 2Co 5:2-4).
“It is sown in dishonour
Its original is dishonourable, it comes, as the Jews often say , (hhwro hpjm) , “from a filthy drop”; its generated brought forth in a manner we are ashamed of; it is conceived in sin, and shapen in iniquity; it is unclean, and born of the flesh: and when born, is in such a condition, as is to the loathing of it; some of its members are less honourable; and so uncomely as always to need a covering; it is subject to various blemishes, defects, and imperfections, and few bodies are without one or another; and liable to many injuries and affronts, as the body of our Lord himself was, who gave his back to the smiters, his cheek to them that plucked off the hair, and hid not his face from shame and spitting; and in death, it is nauseous, filthy, and very dishonourable, so that the nearest relation and friend cannot take pleasure in it, but desires to bury it out of sight; and amidst the greatest funereal pomp and splendour, it is laid in the grave in dishonour, to be the companion of corruption and worms: but in the resurrection,
it is raised in glory;
in perfect beauty and comeliness, without the least blemish, defect, or imperfection; nor will there be any part of it that will occasion shame; it will be metamorphosed, and fashioned like to the glorious body of Christ; it will shine as the sun, and be as the brightness of the firmament: and so the Jews understand the passage in ( Daniel 12:3 ) they say F24 that
God will beautify the bodies of the righteous in time to come, as the body of the first man when he entered into the garden of Eden; and that the soul, whilst it is in its dignity, is sustained by the superior light, and is clothed with it; and when it enters into the body in time to come, it enters with the light; and then will the body shine as the brightness of the firmament, according to ( Daniel 12:3 ) .”-{Matthew Poole}
“However, for those in Christ, the seed that is planted will be “raised in glory.” There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Sin is no longer imputed to us because we have moved to Christ. Therefore, when this body of sin is taken away, what comes from it will be glorious. The Greek word for “glory” is doxa. It carries the meanings of, “honor, renown; glory, an especially divine quality, the unspoken manifestation of God, splendor.” The fallen image of Adam will be replaced with the glorious image of Christ.”
“…but there will be a day when God will bring out of that grave John MacArthur incorruptible version. Secondly, he says there’s another contrast between dishonor and glory. And I think here what he means is all that man was potentially capable of being.
You know, God made man and He looked and He said it’s good. And God gave to man a glory beyond anything else that He made. And by that I mean, God gave man, the capacity to manifest himself beyond any other thing that He made. Man had a greater capacity to manifest God. Man alone was created in the image of whom? Of God. And so man could manifest God, the very glow of God could come through man.
The very life of God be made visible through man, but man sinned and dishonored and scarred and marred that image. And so the whole of man’s life since the fall of Adam is dishonor to the image of God, but some day that glory potential is going to be restored. And this, in this life we are a dishonor. Our capacities are limited. Our minds are limited. All of that unimaginable capacity of the human brain and they tell us we use one tenth of one percent of our brains.
- We dishonor God by our inability to capitalize on what we have in creation.
- We dishonor God because we fail. And finally we go to the grave and there we are ugly and gross and they can paint us up like horizontal members of a late cocktail party, but we’re dead anyway. And we look it and we stink and we dishonor the image of God, but some day says Paul, we’re coming out of that grave in glory.
In other words, in the full manifestation of the sons of God the way He made us to be. No more dishonor, no more corruption. “-{MacArthur}
“Dishonor to Glory (15:43a). All of us come to a point in life when we look in the mirror and say, “Mirror, mirror on the wall—you’ve got to be kidding!” There is a sense in which our bodies are “dishonorable.” But God promises that we will be raised in glory. When a body is transported to a funeral home, it is always covered by a sheet to shield gaping eyes from the dishonor of looking upon the corpse. Every dead body is a reminder of our dishonor, a reminder that we are but frail.
I would like you to do something very carefully: look out of the corner of your eye at the person to the right of you. Don’t do it obviously J. Are you aware that the person you are looking at is terminally ill? Now take a quick look at the person to the left of you. That person also is terminally ill. The reality is that the person sitting between the person to the right of you and the left of you is also terminally ill. Some of us who are younger will be gone before some of us who are older. That’s simply the way it is. Yet we live in denial.”-{Keith Krell}.
“It is sown in dishonor – Being now stripped of all the glory it had as a machine, fearfully and wonderfully made by the hands of God; and also consigned to death and destruction because of sin. This is the most dishonorable circumstance.
It is raised in glory – It is raised a glorious body, because immortal, and for ever redeemed from the empire of death.”
” And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man. I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.”-{1 Cor 15:49-53}
“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to Himself.”- {Phil 1:20-21}. He will transform our bodies , how? No Problem to Him, he will do so, “…by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to Himself.”
PRESENT DAY APPLICATION FOR YOU;
What difference should it make in the present? Our Future look and hope should motivate us to serve Him now!
Verse 58: Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.